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Simple formula. To disprove something someone else did, make it yourself badly, and video tape it failing. Therefore the thing you is proven a failure, thus, nobody else anywhere can make it work.

Because just look at all the fools in the late 1800s who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars combined to create a heavier than air flying machine. We all know that one would have to be a brilliant engineer with millions of dollars to make something like that! What, you think a couple of bicycle mechanics could do that!?!

Pretty much anything is less work and less annoying than having to screw with all the times those tools screw up and you have to fix or whitelist a website. Just look at all the mental energy in this comment thread wasted trying to put together 5, 6, or 7 tools in the right combination like alchemists.

Or, you could just not give a damn so long as it's not flashing or covering the content, and avoid sites that do, because you don't feel like running 10 more unnecessary browser hacks/addons/extensions forever slowing down page loads rather than shrugging your shoulders and never giving it a second thought.

Or yeah, keep fighting the good fight, and Free Tibet... everyone needs a cause, I suppose.;)

Google strong-arming musicians like the worst of the music industry? I dunno, sounds pretty evil to me.

Yes, how dare Google dictate its own business terms! How dare they tell those making money off of their 100% completely free service (without even ads if they so chose not to have them) that the free ride won't last forever. Evil! Evil I say! Nay, Google... NAY!

Google should have no say over how they choose to do business. Instead, Google should be nationalized and operated by an independent board of poets, and every decision voted on by their users to make everyone happy. Their servers will then be converted to run on unicorn rainbow farts, and 99% of profits shall be given to EU newspapers to recoup all of the vast amounts of business they've lost by having Google link to their stories so that people can actually find them.

Please tell me you aren't serious. We've been hearing about a smart grid working with smart appliances for what seems like forever. If we'd done this in the days of dial up, we'd still be on dial up. When's the last time your water company increased the pipe size to your house as part of "innovative upgrade". Never, right? Exactly.

Would you still want a regulated monopoly/duopoly (government's fault)? I don't know about you, but taking back the last 20 years of profit to undo the broadband revolution seems like an insanely BAD idea.

Let's keep the sour grapes reactions under wraps so we don't get stuck in the dark ages of current speeds for the next 20 years. I agree the problem is with politicians in back pockets, but it's the local and state policies that stop competition we should be fighting. Pretending they'll innovate under threat of becoming a pure utility will not work. They'll simply become a utility.

If all police are going to wear cameras, I demand public outcry equivilant to Google Glass for any police officer entering a bar, going to the bathroom, or hanging out around playgrounds.

You think I'm joking... but if I take a video on Google Glass, it's for private use. If I take a video as a camera enabled police officer, that embarassing moment is caught on police video, which can be seen by anyone with authorization... and just look at all those "authorized" videos showing up on Cops, Amazing Chases, etc. And the show Cops proves that people will sit for hours watching mundane police activity so long as there are a few drunk/stupid/lying/disfigured/crazy citizen to laugh at.

We're not ready for a massive EMP... or a 500 mile high Tsunami... or Giant radioactive lizards that breath fire. I love the quote though, "In the first few minutes of an EMP, nearly half a million people would die." Well, if we're talking about an EMP that could take out the entire US including airspace, that might be true of planes falling from the sky and trains running off the rails. But that scenario isn't even remotely plausible outside total nuclear annihilation. Further, Hurrican Katrina showed that even an EMP hitting a major city is really nothing more than a power outage. Flooding happens to be the most dangerous natural disaster in reach of major cities (short of Hawaii blowing up or California splitting in half). Unless the results of an EMP are dams breaking in some Superman: The Movie kind of way, we wouldn't even see a Katrina level disaster.

Frankly, I could care less about an EMP. Any number of computer viruses could disable more machines than an EMP. And a radioactive dirty bomb is a real threat to life for decades. Any terrorist that could cause an explosion capable of triggering a sufficiently large EMP would find that the bomb itself would be more useful against a soft civilian target. An EMP is just flat out impractical for a terrorist, who prefers simple and direct and terrifying.

On the other hand, if we're worried about a bad actor like North Korea, I believe such an EMP that could hit multiple US cities at once would trigger a nuclear response from the US. What are we going to do, waste resources wrapping electronics in shielding for... an unwarranted fear? And $2 Billion sounds desperately low. It's like the TSA, only even more incredibly useless.

I seem to have the opposite experience. When I go golfing with people (rarely), hitting the green is pretty easy. Every one then get's 2 or 3 tries at the putt, then just gives up, picks up the ball. Frankly, I see no reason to change hole size, because we already treat it as two games. Hitting the green is golf. Trying to get the ball in the hole is a the other game of "@&#$ing stupid %#! son of a @*%@# get in the $%&#ing hole... awww ^*@& it, next fairway..."

The issue for me is spending hours just trying to get through 9 holes before my legs fall off and my head burns in the sun. It's not money or the hole size. I play with a $15 set of mismatched clubs I found at a garage sale and I play on public courses.

Haha, that's what everyone said about the separating of DVD and streaming services, which was an effective price hike.

But in all seriousness, there was nothing special about the deal, it was a peering agreement, which is STANDARD procedure for EVERYONE. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with Net Neutrality. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea how the system works and has worked since the Internet originally went commercial. Not... One... Clue... This is how the Internet as most everyone knows it has always, always, worked.

The Congress did not give the Executive branch this power by any sort of law that I can recall

Who said this was limited to the US government? You are talking about against US citizens by the US government, a very select case. Several countries can spy on their own citizens "by law", China for instance. It's quite legal there. So, that immediately would contradict your statement "It's an illegal activity, whether done by governments or by the mob." Because it's just not true on its face.

We are not aware which country did this, unlike Stuxnet. So let's look at Stuxnet, which was created by the US and Israel. The CIA operates under similar legality to operate on foreign agents and powers. Why does Stuxnet differ from an agent sneaking in and sabotaging a machine?

In what way is Stuxnet, targetted at Iran, crimeware under US law. Sometimes laws give explicit powers. Other times, powers are assumed unless explicitly prohibited.

Something is not simply illegal where the law is silent.

So, assuming Stuxnet was an operation carried out by the US government against the Iran government, and assuming that it operated as intended, namely that it never left Iranian facilities... show me the law, the exact law, that makes it illegal.

You are sort of blandly making these assumptions of legality... without anything legal backing. If you were to take the makers of Stuxnet to court, what law would you go to SCOTUS charging them with if you were Iran?

You can't just throw "not done under the rule of law" out there. That's some libertarian, "government can't do anything unless we spell it out in exact detail to them, with no wiggle room", jargon. And, you may very well be a libertarian and believe that. Unfortunately for that argument, neither the US government nor the courts nor China nor Russia nor many other countries with cyberwar programs take such a view on the law.

That leaves it as thinking is should be illegal, but that's opinion, not law.